Naming a Health Care Bill After Ted Kennedy Is Exactly What the Senator Would Have Wanted

Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet at 10:41 AM on August 28, 2009.

Let’s all be clear about one thing: Ted Kennedy wanted health reform. Badly.

In the months leading up to last November’s election, Kennedy threw his support behind Barack Obama only in exchange for a promise that the Obama administration would make health care a central policy priority. And I’m sure no one needs reminding that Kennedy called the issue “the cause of my life.”

So when the usual bacon-fed hate-baiters on the right (Hannity and Limbaugh, thus far) start arguing that a health care bill named after Kennedy would be some sort of “sympathy ploy,” we can all be forgiven for emitting a collective, exasperated “WTF!?”

Here’s the full Limbaugh quote, via POLITICO:

"Placing [Kennedy’s] name on a health-care bill, in memoriam, or using his name as a sympathy ploy to advance a health care bill that would deny Americans the choices Sen. Kennedy had is an insult and is supreme hypocrisy. The senator's passing is going to give them the opportunity to use the sympathy play to get as much done in his name as possible."

First of all, who is denying anyone the same choices Kennedy had? U.S. senators are all eligible for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, a plan with striking similarities to (you guessed it!) the public option Kennedy was pushing. It’s assholes like Limbaugh, with their paranoia and fear mongering, that are actually trying to stall meaningful reform.

Secondly, claiming that carrying out Kennedy’s largest political priority is somehow exploitative is like calling foul on a desegregated school named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Perhaps Limbaugh is worried that this whole “naming” precedent will result in the next embarrassing rationale for torture or racism being called the “Cheney Bill” or the “Limbaugh Amendment.” But you never know. Maybe he’d like to be remembered as someone whose life’s work was sanctioning those noxious practices.  

Tagged as: health, limbaugh, kennedy, hannity, health reform